lly practised; "if
_I_ am satisfied with your report, no one else has a right to complain.
Desire Sir Wycherly Wychecombe to meet me on deck, where we will now go,
Stowel, and take a look at the weather for ourselves."

"With all my heart, Admiral Bluewater, though I'll just drink the First
Lord's health before we quit this excellent liquor. That youngster has
stuff in him, in spite of his nobility, and by fetching him up, with
round turns, occasionally, I hope to make a man of him, yet."

"If he do not grow into that character, physically and morally, within
the next few years, sir, he will be the first person of his family who
has ever failed of it."

As Bluewater said this, he and the captain left his cabin, and ascended
to the quarter-deck. Here Stowel stopped to hold a consultation with his
first lieutenant, while the admiral went up the poop-ladder, and joined
Cornet. The last had nothing new to communicate, and as he was permitted
to go below, he was desired to send Wycherly up to the poop, where the
young man would be expected by the rear-admiral.

Some little time elapsed before the Virginian could be found; no sooner
was this effected, however, than he joined Bluewater. They had a private
conversation of fully half an hour, pacing the poop the whole time, and
then Cornet was summoned back, again, to his usual station. The latter
immediately received an order to acquaint Captain Stowel the
rear-admiral desired that the Caesar might be hove-to, and to make a
signal for the Druid 36, to come under the flag-ship's lee, and back her
main-top-sail. No sooner did this order reach the quarter-deck than the
watch was sent to the braces, and the main-yard was rounded in, until
the portion of sail that was still set lay against the mast. This
deadened the way of the huge body, which rose and fell heavily in the
seas, as they washed under her, scarcely large enough to lift the
burthen it imposed upon them. Just at this instant, the signal was made.

The sudden check to the movement of the Caesar brought the Dublin booming
up in the darkness, when putting her helm up, that ship surged slowly
past to leeward, resembling a black mountain moving by in the gloom. She
was hailed and directed to heave-to, also, as soon as far enough ahead.
The Elizabeth followed, clearing the flag-ship by merely twenty fathoms,
and receiving a similar order. The Druid had been on the admiral's
weather-quarter, but she now came gliding down,